Perspectives on Sámi Mathematics Education

• Main Authors: Anne Birgitte Fyhn, Ellen J Sara Eira, Bharath Sriraman
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Arctic; Norway; eskimo*; Sámi; Yupik
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1050.776; http://hs.umt.edu/math/research/technical-reports/documents/2011/4_2011_FyhnEiraSriraman.pdf

Abstract: The Sámi are an indigenous people of the Arctic, and through a resolution of the United Nations, Norway is bound to take care of the Sámi culture and language. Since 1987 the Sámi have had their curriculum, but they have no mathematics syllabus. In this paper we summarize the legal acts that take care of the Sámi culture within the Norwegian educational system, and then discuss three examples of Sámi mathematics, which can be part of a possible Sámi mathematics syllabus. First, a unit of measurement is presented, second, a unique way of treating the ratios 2 : 1 and 1 : 2 is described, and finally the use of some Sámi versus Norwegian geometry terms are exposed. The three examples are situated in relation to the Yupik Eskimo Mathematics in a Cultural Context (MCC), as described by Lipka